I love shopping for food and I have to admit that I am one of those people that reads labels. Not because I'm interested in the calories and the fat content, but because I love to see how many ingredients processed and packaged food contains that I either don't recognise or that I can?t pronounce.

Food is a far cry from what our Grandparents called food. The choice as we walk up and down the supermarket aisles is staggering.

As your senses are bombarded with colour and promises, where should you really begin and how do you know what you should be eating?

Le look at labels; refined, wholemeal, fat-free, zero sugar, free-from, gluten-free, i hard to understand what it is you're actually buying, let alone if i good for you. You know that you have recently seen some of these labels mentioned in magazines that you've read, but was it to add to your diet or was it to avoid?

There is so much information available about what you should be eating, what you should be avoiding and what you should be adding to your diet, it can actually leave you so confused you end up making no change to your diet at all, especially when much of the information contradicts each other. All you want to do is make better food choices for you and our family. Food choices that support you, give you more energy and prevent you from piling on the pounds, but it just seems too difficult to know what to do for the best.

I almost impossible to keep up with what super-food, super-nutrient, super-grass you should be eating, blending, juicing…

So where should you start?

I love food, I can spend hours in the kitchen creating new recipes ? however this wasn?t always the case for me. When I was younger my idea of cooking used to be toast.

Today I love cooking, but the simplicity of my cooking remains. All my recipes use real food and can be made in under 30 minutes.

I say ?real food? for a reason. Most food that you find on a supermarket shelf is processed and bears very little resemblance to the ingredients that are lovingly shown on the packet. In fact just to read many of the ingredients on the label you need a science degree!

So le go back to basics and keep it simple.

Here?s my easy guidelines to taking the first steps to improving your food choices:

• If it contains ingredients that your Grandma wouldn?t recognise, don't eat it
• If it couldn?t be made in your own kitchen don't eat it
• If it contains ingredients that you wouldn?t keep in your own kitchen don't eat it

Food is absolutely essential to our existence, but what we call ?food? today, is often actually a ?food-like? substance. A product that was made in a plant, when what we should actually be eating should be grown as a plant.

Making healthy choices doesn?t mean that you miss out on anything, in fact as you eat more and more real food, your taste buds wake up to the delights that food actually has to offer. Our taste buds are so used to bland, beige food (breads, pasta, wheat, dairy), that they have forgotten what an exciting and abundant range of fresh and vibrant foods are out there waiting to delight your senses.

If you want convincing I would start with my 10 minute, no bake, dairy free Chocolate Brownies. I know they sound as if they should be bland, but you?ll love them! I can?t tell you how many people don't believe that they are not traditional brownies full of sugar and fat.

You?ll love the brownies and this is just the beginning of up-grading your food choices. Once you realise how quick, easy and tasty it is to make healthy choices, and that there is no need to be confused or overwhelmed by all the hype there is about healthy food, you will wonder what all of the fuss was about. Rather than feeling guilty about your food choices, you will begin to feel empowered as you step into vibrant health.

Don't forget to check out Rebecca's online program “30 days to transform you and your life through Raw Food Deliciousness“. And not a carrot stick in site!!